Crises Management Team: East Fife Football Club - Case Study Example

Crisis Management Customer Inserts His/Her Name Customer Inserts Grade Course Customer Inserts Tutor’s Name Insert Date Here (Day, Month, Year) Introduction What are crises? The word crises itself invokes in us feeling of suffering and an unpredictable situation of emergency needing immediate attention but with the proper management, any crises can be averted. For the case study, I have taken East Fife Football Club, whose home matches are played at Bayview stadium, located in Scottish coastal town of Methil in Fife and main purpose of club is to play football and provide hospitality on match days, as range of hospitality packages are offered by it. The stadium was established in 1903 but it was relocated to its present venue in 1998. The stadium has one stand on the south side and is opened on three sides and no further spectators can be accommodated. Provision of car parks is made on the east and west sides of stadium. Methil power station is situated on the far side, which overshadows the pitch and business-park is also being built around it. Training facilities and administration processes are carried on the daily basis from Monday to Friday and Saturday afternoons are oriented for football matches. Stadium, both by vehicles and pedestrians, can be accessed only through the way of Harbour View, and playing surfaces can be accessed through gates at each corner of the ground. The capacity of the stadium is around 2000 and there are great chances of crowd disorder, which may involve pitch invasion, overcrowding, crushing, etc. or fire in the Main stand complex. Each such incident could lead to considerable number of injuries or deaths and there might arise the need for the evacuation of the premises. Legislation Controls The statutory function of Fife’s Council is to survey the safety standards at Bayview Stadium, Methil for the safety of spectators in terms of Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975 and the stadium holds a Safety Certificate in terms of the legislation. The safety provisions are monitored by the Working Group of Officials, which is comprised of Fire and Rescue Service, Democratic Services, Development Services, Transportation Services, and Fife Constabulary, which in turn reports to Police, Fire and Safety Committee. The Contingency plan has been drawn as per requirements and this plan is intended to form on the basis of how the stadium responds to the emergency situations but is not proscriptive and should be used as a starting point, which all responds to evolving emergency situations. This plan is stadium’s preplanned response to foreseeing emergencies and may operate independently but it should not be considered in isolation but interrelated, as required with the contingency plan of the emergency services and local authority where and when applicable. Crises Plan Emergency situation could be of different nature and the prediction of the same is also very difficult and it is also not possible in many situations to determine the exact responses required for the circumstances that can be changed accordingly. To successfully handle crises of grave nature, Gonzalez-Herrero and Prat formed crises management model in four phases like issues management, planning, crises and post crises. The intention of the plan is the identification of any emergency situation that might occur in stadium during the matches and to make an effective plan to deal with the situation including the way stadium should respond to the emergency and in which situation and how they can involve any emergency services or related agency to protect people and stadium from this emergency situation? For e.g. what and how the crises management team made the plans to tackle the crises and to save the spectators in case of fire? To deal with the emergency situation, command is given to the Nominated State Officer or we can also call him Safety officer. He would be involved in the management and control of the crises. As soon as it has become apparent that such a situation has arisen, the first response of the security officer would be to immediately inform control room of the crises. Secondly, Senior Ambulance officer would be present and immediately fire service people would be called. The emergency situation is evaluated after taking into consideration the location, nature and severity of the emergency. If in case the emergency situation is very serious, all the methods need to be adopted to evacuate persons. Hereby Security officer has already assessed the situation beforehand and all methods of evacuation would be adopted but here it is not the time to take the assessment but to take quick action. Security officer should go at the back end of the club where the facility of CCTV is available. This helps to provide requirements for the evacuation process. It also has a back-up system to control the final exit doors. At the slightest intimation, emergency services would be provided and secondly there are exit back doors for the same. Meantime efforts would be also made to evacuate spectators through the back, exit and other doors. Even before the match is started, members of the club should make sure that all exit gates are fully opened and are fixed by the bolts required for that purpose as regards requirements of the match. Stewards should be made aware of all the functioning process of the fire fighting equipments on the ground. Steward Supervisors should have all the information required for the same. They should be capable to recognize the fire hazards and report about the findings to the supervisors and or police officers. Club has also made provisions for fire alarm system, which is situated at the main stand with break points located all over. When the system is activated, an alarm would be heard and there would a signal that would be shown on the control panel at the main entrance foyer, which would allow for the call to transfer to the rescue service department. Not just this, there would also be a manual telephone call backed by the club safety officer and his deputy to the Fire Station Department at the assigned local number. If the Fire Station Department could not receive confirmation within two minutes then whether fire condition exists or not, necessary arrangements would be made for the evacuation of the spectators on the stand. 24 hours before the match is started, the club management must ensure that the appropriate installations, complete infrastructure and adequate components have been inspected and undergone testing phase by most competent persons and the results of the tests are declared. They need to check that all the automatic fire detection and fire warning system including repeater panels are placed; Stewards radio system is in working condition; emergency telephones are functioning; closed circuit television system and emergency lighting system are in order; temporary television camera platforms, gantries and other installations are properly installed as required by media. There should also be adequate and suitable substitutes in case some technical faults have been found in the above systems and if a need arises, then the certain areas where spectators are seated should be closed. There is also a Turnstile Counting mechanism like all turnstiles operate manually, and in the event of the main power failure; the system automatically is deferred back to power back up. With the equipment like Steward Radio system, there is no possibility for total failure as there is system, which assists in the operation from back to back basis. There are also enough spare sets. It is a duty of the Safety officer of the club to check that every structure is free from damage, corrosion or deformation that might cause any risk or danger to the public and detailed annual inspection should be conducted. In case of any power cut or failure, there should be uninterrupted power supply battery that would fulfill the needs for the public address system and the emergency lighting. Every time when the match is going to start, the club safety officer should test the emergency power supplies. There is no main gas supply also towards the station and the chemicals are kept at the Groundsman’s store located at the lockfast room towards the main stand. Wherever it is expected that there is a chemical leak, the club safety officer is called to advise the fire and rescue service department who can handle any incidents arising out of the chemicals. Crises Management Team To effectively solve the crisis, the management of any institution like stadium requires an action team which has committed itself towards the solution of the crises and to bring the company and its people out of the crises. The crises management team should have an effective leader who could maintain regularity and cohesiveness of the team. This team should coordinate with the team member during regular meetings, training process and in evaluation of the threats. As according to the Gonzalez-Herrero and Prat, in crises management model, the first step is known as the issues management, whereby a written plan is made and is implemented both in vertically and horizontal way within the precincts of the business operations. They form communication plan that would permit exchange of information in a timely manner, form a training schedule and adopt the respective action teams and forge a culture that would deal with all the crises in a cooperative manner. As said above, analysis of the threat is done and use of the threat matrix to make concrete plan for the high alerts and the assessment is made on the potentiality of the threat and to the extent it can cause damage. After forming the crises plan, follows the setting of priorities based on the policies and procedures. Therefore we can say that a crises planning is the most unique and distinct part of the crises management team. For the most effective implication of the crises management, proper training is also very necessary requiring regular exercise to conduct the test of crises management plans. There are several steps required for the proper training like notification and activation; tabletop; and simulation. The first type of exercise is required for testing the ability of the company to receive information on the potential crises, to make assessment of the impact of the crises and to determine how the team should respond to it. The exercise would start with the call to the crises response number and would end when the crisis management team assembles. It is useful for testing the team’s call trees. Second is table top exercise where the meetings of the team are held and the plans are discussed and the testing is done on the leadership skills, methods of communication, structural organization etc. In the final simulation training process, detailed planning and organization is required. The imaginary scenario is created and scripts written. It is of great benefit to the crises management team as it helps them in evaluating and formulating effective strategy to control any critical situation. Conclusion To deal with any crises in any organization or company, or stadium, first three minutes are very crucial for them. During these three minutes as the crises unfolds, it is a duty of the first responding officer to make quick decision as regards the severity of the case that would have an impact on the agency, community and finally their careers. Any failure on part of agency could lead to very grave consequences. Any agency or department responsible must provide options for first responders. Since they are not able to develop adequately a response plan and not capable to use “grand theory of incident command”, to provide various options to bring out the response priorities that would facilitate them to make quick decisions and solve the problems. As it is mentioned above, the team should be equipped with no doubt all the equipments but beyond that the team should have ability to decide the first best option like process of evacuation. It is the severity and the urgency of the case that would decide how the first responders would act in such situations. The decisions made during first three minutes set the phase and time zone for disaster. These decisions are influenced by five factors such as first responders’ selection of deployment protocols, which include tactical deployment, setting up perimeters, or initiating evacuations. The second factor is agency policies effectiveness to deal critical incidents; the third factor is professional maturity; the fourth factor is furtherance of partnerships between the Agency and other emergency providers; and fifth factor is preparedness of the agency through training. After this process comes the actual control of the fire and here by involves various kinds of dynamic systems. These dynamic systems constitute two parts, a rule or dynamic, which brings out the specification how the system evolves? Some dynamic systems are evolved in complex manner, are irregular and look like as if it is defying all the rules. The next type of the system is impossible to predict from previous one. As Henri Poincare also said that the reason owing to this is not due to the rules of the system but in the specification of the initial conditions. In short the chaotic dynamic systems are dependent on the sensitivity of the initial conditions. Actually, 24 hours prior to an event, disaster organizations are at the edge of chaos, which is a position where maximum adaptability is allowed. Even very small errors can lead to large negative consequences and the accumulation of errors can lead second transition phase, which there is disconnection between organisational fragments. It is also possible that from this phase, more complex and adaptive structures may evolve but it is not sure that they can be efficient. What is most important is communication between the various agencies involved to avert any major effect of disaster. In case of fire or any other crisis in a stadium, communication of the staff with each other and with other agencies can handle any major evacuation. 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